But then, fund returns usually do not equal to investor returns. Fund returns are measured between 2 points in time usually 1 Jan to 31 Dec. If you invested an any other time, them you need to measure your investment to know your returns.

The downturn is what made me look into properties now. If you did your research and found good investment properties, these can pump money regularly and steadily for you. Where as for funds, when down turn hits, the fund reduce in value. The great advantage of funds is the liquidity and ease in which you can buy or sell. With properties, you need to do your homework, which includes hunting the right one, inspecting the property, negotiating the price, renovate and maintain the property. Not to mention about getting bank loans and the such.

After all this hassle, then you need to find tenants. Hopefully tenants that won’t trash your place.

I got this photo from FB which gives you an idea how bad it can get. I cannot imagine how someone can live in a place until it becomes a dump literally. You can see more photo’s like this here. You have been warned.

So while there are advantages to properties, there are quite a fair bit too. It is precisely due to the fact that it takes quite a bit of time that I held off investing in properties. But things changed and it is time to change as well.

At the moment, I have to invest time to look for the right one. Hunting for properties do take time. Wish me luck.

My brother who works in Shell will be one of those at risk of being cut. Just sometime ago, I thought he had a great job, well paid and good benefits. I think this comes as no surprise but then, even as a pessimist, to me things have begun to turn around. Perhaps I was wrong. All the cash injection into the world economy might not have been enough.

Still the lesson here great as things are, it is always good to have a plan B. Or a plan C for that matter. The article is here. Develop your skills wherever you work and make those skill portable. If not, then make use of your free time and develop a hobby that can pay.

What about you? Do you have a plan B?

pic credit

1. Start a blog & make money! 
2. Join this company! It has a great reward scheme!
3. Start a business!
4. Be a business owner!
5. Migrate
6. Be a web 2.0 consultant.

and you can make some money, since it is the in thing, you should ask yourself, “Should I blog? Should I start a business? Be a consultant?”

Why? Did anyone tell you the time it takes to maintain a regular blog? Or the things you need to go through to start a business and keep it profitable? Probably not.

What ever you think is a good idea at the beginning, ask yourself this.

1. Is this something I really want to do?
2. Am I good at it?
3. Would I enjoy it?

If your answer is no or maybe, then probably not a good idea to get started.

The reply I receive is,”We don’t do blogs. We can help you design your website and add a link to a blog site!” Although this is not really a NO, the person missed an opportunity to make some money. If they did 10 minutes of research, or perhaps get someone else to set up a blog and mark up the fee and quoted me, they could have earned some easy money. After all, I could have been a corporate customer with the means to pay a $1,000 or more to set up a blog.

Yes, opens doors of opportunity. No, opens the doors of opportunity to your competitor!

This brings me to the topic at hand

on creating a cash machine for yourself. For people like singers and entertainers, they, their name, the songs they write and sing, become “software” or intellectual property that is worth money. And the great thing about such intellectual property is that once it is created, it keeps on generating money over a long period of time. Another example at the moment is the Transformer movie franchise. It is going great guns with T-shirts, drinking bottles, toys, pencil holders, you name it, you have it with images of Transformers in all shape and sizes. Then there is the evergreen Star Wars franchise. Even more amazing. I wanted to create a site with Star Wars theme and everything is create and copyrighted. From the characters, the famous X-Wing, Millenium Falcon, Darth Vader, everything was created out of the mind of someone. But you say, I’m not Michael Jackson, not even close to Spielberg. That’s true but you still can create.

As an example, this site and several others I write on, becomes my intellectual property. Sure it is not even a tiny drop compared to MJ but still it brings in some dough. It is my first blog and not even that focused. And I didn’t have a framework to blog when I first started. Some of my other sites which are more targeted do generate decent money for me. Now, if you are keen to consider starting a side income initially and later turn it into a cash machine, I highly recommend you check out this course. Now the course is not for everyone. If you think you can just sign up for the course and start to make money,  then forget it. It doesn’t work that way. You have to take action and create content either by writing, creating podcast or interviews or video. It take work so forget get rich quick.

If you are prepared to work by work, I mean creating content, and assuming you can connect and build up an audience, then you will earn money. More important than just earning money is to build an asset for yourself over time, that you control. Okay, this is the free report titled Roadmap for you to read if you want to check out blogging. There are also 10 video that you can watch for free here. Why am I suggesting you check this out? Well, I’ve been exposed to lots of money making opportunity. Some are genuine, some are less so. But in the end, you don’t create an asset you own that you can sell or trade or do whatever you want with it. A site or a blog that is done properly can bring you income for years to come, and I’ve seen it happen so many times and you don’t have to hit it big to earn decent income. Anyway do check it out as the course is open for 5 days only to sign up and cost $50 for 6 months. It closes on 3rd June. Here is the sign up page if you are keen.

Rigsby says, “Just because you’ve been selling electronics before doesn’t mean you can’t learn to sell something else,”

The point is to re-tool yourself! Although this downturn accelerated the demise of certain jobs, it has been happening for quite some time. Stock brokers, travel agents and real estate are going the way of the dinosaur because they were just middle man in many instances. (Some of the above agents have changed and are doing quite well)

Question : Can you join all the black dots above with just 3 straight lines?

But to change everything at the same time is too expensive, too difficult and the risk of failure is high. To make smaller changes gives you a better chance of success.

I remember my senior who mentioned this. Use the same old idea for new people or use new ideas for old people. So now, let’s say you have

• employed staff, you can change what they do,
• same customers, you can change what you sell them,
• keep your machines, but make something else (sometimes not possible)
• keep your products, but sell them in another industry, another country, another way.

Here is the answer. By the way, there are other solutions to join the 9 dots with just 1 line! Just think out of your box.

Someone sent me an email a few days ago to check out something called a Quantum Pendant. This person got my email from a directory site and offered me the opportunity to make a few hundred dollars if I have the time and the interest.

The email is quite standard opening, I’ve heard this line used so often and immediately I knew it had something to do with Multi Level Marketing of some sort. And I was right.

So I looked around to find out more about this Quantum Pendant and found the Fusion Excel site which is the company that sells this pendant. What was amazing is that this company managed to get endorsements from many well known athletes. Sure is a way to convince potential buyers. Golfers, body builders etc gave good reviews about getting better distance and strength.

The site claims the pendant produces

scalar energy that helps to enhance the body’s biofield. The Quantum Pendant promotes positive flow of energy and helps to maintain energy balance. It helps to restore energy that has become weak in the body.

The site also claims that the pendant can

• Reduces inflammation
• Promotes unclumping of cells
• Enhances circulation
• Enhances immune and endocrine systems
• Has the ability to destroy viruses and bacteria
• Enhances cellular nutrition and detoxification
• Enhances cellular permeability
• Increases energy
• Helps to protect DNA from damage
• Helps to retard the ageing process
• Helps to fight cancer cells
• Strengthens the body’s biofield preventing electro-magnetic waves from affecting one’s health
• Increases focus and concentration

which I found a bit far fetched. Closer inspection of the patterns reminded me it sure looked a lot like the patterns on a Bio Disc which I wrote about some time ago. A search on scalar energy revealed that this theory borders on pseudoscience.

Anyway, at the moment, there is still not much complaints on the internet about people who bought the Quantum Pendant which (cost a fair bit). I still maintain that if anything is truly effective, the people who first discovered it would patent it, sell the it by the truck load and keep the whole fortune to themselves. Don’t need a network to earn over 80% of the profits unless is it something dubious.

I’m no market analyst but I was watching markets around the world. The downtrend all around raise flag in my head. Anyway, looking at the way things are going, this is a period of uncertainty still. Many investors are wary of how big a rescue plan need to be to make sure the market’s don’t implode.

Fast forward to today, oil prices drop a little and everyone who drives is looking forward to a drop in gas prices. I have to admit, I’m one of those, optimistic that gas prices will go back to something more normal.

Then, I stumbled on this this article in CNN Money.

The article mentions Matt Simmons who wrote the book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy

Matt Simmons is an investment banker with his own boutique bank, Simmons & Co. In the book, Simmons offers a detailed description of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the U.S and our long-standing dependence upon Saudi oil.

He also highlights many discrepancies between Saudi Arabia’s actual production potential and its seemingly extravagant resource claims. After writing his book, he has moved to the forefront of the peak-oil movement – a growing contingent of oil industry veterans, independent consultants, investors, and academics who believe that world oil production is at or near an inflection point, after which it will fall inexorably and fail to meet projected future demands.

The article in CNN mentions that while we are not running out of oil tomorrow, we might be pass the point of cheap oil. Why is this important? I think it is important for us to know and make provision for such things that could happen. Perhaps like investing in solar energy, if you live in places that is practical. There are places in the US, where there is loans and subsidies to install solar panels, which make financial sense to do so. At the same time you are going green.

If you are keen on the documentary, you can get the DVD here

I received an email from a contributing editor of Brighthub, Elizabeth Winstrom because of the article I wrote about Making Money from your Geek Skills. Bright hub is a science and technology portal where you get to write your article, post it and get a revenue share based on revenue per thousand page (RPM) views.

Similar to something like squidoo pages, or hubpages but instead of sharing adsense and other revenue, they pay you a fixed sum plus “bonus” shall I say. And instead of just starting any page or topic, you have to apply to be a writer, get approved and then requested to write on certain specific topics.

For every article that is approved, you get $10 for the article, $1 for every backlink pointing to your article, plus the 80% of the monthly site RPM.

From BrightHub site, writers responsibility include

1. Write articles based on the planning and analysis provided by the Managing Editor and the writing request and various creation and performance plans created by the Contributing Editor
2. Work with the Contributing Editor on changes to articles in order to meet Bright Hub’s quality standards
3. Promote and grow the popularity of articles through leveraging recommended search keywords and phrases and obtaining quality backlinks to written articles.
4. Update articles as requested by the Contributing or Managing Editor. Failure to maintain articles according to the article maintenance plan will result in the replacement of the consultant for that article with a different writer and a diversion of future revenues for that article to such new writer.

Ed’s take. Hmm, looks like you got to go and get backlinks to your article too. Marketing work included.

If you like to write, don’t want the hassle to maintain a blog or create your own following, then, you can give it a go. Generating decent revenue from a blog takes quite a lot of work nowadays to get it off the ground. Unless you are in it for the long run, a blog really takes time. For a quick buck or so, it might be worth to try brighthub. Who knows, if your article is really popular, it can generate a bit of residual income.

It might increase your publicity level even if you have a blog. Although $10 for 300 – 400 word article might not be too difficult to write, I’m not sure how it goes when it comes to editing your article. If there are multiple edits until they are happy, it could take too much time & it will feel like working for someone at a job.

On the other hand, such editing could polish up your writing style.

Anyway, I asked my buddy why he is selling one of his sites. The site has something to do with music which is his key interest. The answer didn’t really surprised me. After much time and effort to write and update his site, he wasn’t getting much in return, monetary wise. Sure he get’s check from google every few months but that’t way too much time. So he decided to close it down.

I think many people who put up websites and blogs nowadays don’t earn much from their efforts. It’s just too competitive and unless you pick a niche you are really familiar with and can offer good information, it can be hard to get an regular audience and to make some money from the site.

Anyway, my buddy decided to just go teach music as side income. Getting students won’t be a problem and assuming he charges around $30 per student for 30 minutes of teaching, he could make $150 to $200 every month working just half a day every Saturday! Not too bad and would be more that what he makes updating his website. By the way, he spend between 1 to 2 hours daily to write to his site and interviews people.

The lesson here is knowing when to quit and change direction. The knowledge he gather from his website is not lost and can be used to market his teaching later on. Too many people are spending too much time on something that doesn’t generate enough returns. Remember your ROI and ROT. Return on investment and return on your time.